2. Review of Classical Methods 13 to be noted that the swing equation reduces to the equation of a nonlinear pendulum when Pr = 0. Invariably, numerical methods have to be used for solving the swing equation. However simple techniques exist for the testing of system stability when subjected to small and large disturbances. ‘These will be taken up in the following sections. 2.2 Some Mathematical Preliminaries (3, 4] A nonlinear continuous time dynamic system is denoted by the state equation e=f(, 0) (ean where z and f are column vectors of dimension ‘n’. u is a vector of dimension ‘r’ in general. u can be viewed as input vector. If u is a constant vector, the system is said to be autonomous. If the elements of u are explicit functions of time, t, then the system is said to be non-autonomous. If the initial condition is specified, ie. (te) = Zo (2.12) then the solution to Eq. (2.11) is expressed as ¢1(zr) to show explicitly the de- pendence on initial condition. (Note that since u is constant it can be treated. as parameter and the dependence of the solution on u need not be shown explicitly) fis called the vector field and ¢¢(z.) is called the trajectory through 7». 4x(z) where x € R” is called the flow For non-autonomous systems, the trajectory is also a function of time t and is expressed a5 (to, to) which indicates the solution passes through 5 at ton In what follows, the attention will be focussed only on autonomous sys- tems as power systems can be modelled as autonomous systems. With some mild restrictions on f, the solution of Eq. (2.11) has the following properties 1. ‘The solution exists for all t 2 At any time t, de(2) = de(y) if and only if x = y. Also as $(, 415) = $t1-Pta» it follows that a trajectory of an autonomous system is uniquely specified by its initial condition and that distinct trajectories do not intersect. 3. The derivative of a trajectory with respect to the initial condition exists and is nonsingular. For ¢ and ty fixed, (20) is continuous with respect to initial state zo.